Street Fighter V Update Thoughts

So it's been a few days since the recent update for Street Fighter V hit publicly which has given players time to play around with the games new features and start messing around with the new DLC character, Alex. As some of you may know from reading around on the internet, Street Fighter V's launch was rather lackluster to say the least. At launch the game was lacking in it's much anticipated story mode, a classic arcade mode which was a standard for any fighting game, lack of combo trials for players to practice example combos for characters they want to learn and it's in game store where players could unlock additional costumes and colours for the characters wasn't activated yet. The developers at Capcom have expressed that these features would be added in future updates to the game over the coming months. Now that the first update has been released we can start taking a look at some of the major changes implemented now.

First off, the biggest thing people want to talk about is that as of just now, the upcoming DLC character Alex is now free and available to play for a limited time for all players. The mixed martial artist wrestler from NYC has been a much anticipated character to return to the Street Fighter series ever since his first and last inclusion in the Street Fighter 3 adaptations. Everyone had been wanting to see how he would fair in this new Street Fighter and are happy to finally be able to play him. So far he seems like a vast improvement over how he played in previous games. He still has his mix of strong hard hitting attacks and grapples but now has a few more ways to get past projectile characters with some armoured moves. It's still a bit too early to say how great he will be in the competitive scene but he certainly feels like an improvement over his initial appearance. As someone who loves playing as this grappler style of character he's certainly a welcomed return to the series for me.

So what else was implemented in the update? While the game's arcade mode and story have still yet to be added to the game and won't be added for another several months, Capcom did listen to player demands for combo trials. Each character now gets a set of 10 combo challenges where the player must input the correct sequence of attacks in order to complete the combo. They start off with pretty simple 2-3 hit combo attacks to give players the basics of the character before going onto more advanced lengthy combos that are harder to pull off. While overall these trials are nowhere near as difficult as the ones presented in the previous SF4 title, they are still fairly good at giving an increasing level of challenge for players as they fight through the trials and of course, some characters have harder more complex combos than others. It's a good feature to help get players familiar with how a characters general means of damage when they land a hit plays out although I have to really emphasise that this honestly should have been in the game at launch.

Trial Menu for the character Ryu

Other big changes to the game include being able to fight the same online opponent in a Ranked Match 2 out of 3 times. After a match both players can decide if they want to have a rematch with the opponent until one of them has won at least 2 matches. It allows players to have a chance at exacting revenge after perhaps losing a match or for a player to show they are skilled enough to beat the opponent more than once. It's a great feature to be included for the series.

Couldn't help but get that sweet jumpsuit for my man Birdie

 The last major change in the recent update is that  now players can access the in game shop to  spend some of their hard earned Fight Money.  Fight Money is an in game point currency  obtained whenever players use a certain  character often enough, complete the characters  prologue modes or the in game Survival Mode.  The main appeal of Fight Money is that if  players have enough of it they can actually use it  to purchase DLC content such as characters and  costumes without spending any actual money on  them. When new costumes are released or the  upcoming DLC character Alex becomes available to purchase, which is great for players who invest a lot of time into the game to get better at it and who perhaps can't afford to pay for all of the DLC content. This is indeed something I'd love to see implemented more in not just fighting games but in other video games in general. Yes, it takes a really long time to earn the Fight Money to buy the DLC content but giving the players the option of either saving time by simply paying for the content upfront or save money by investing a lot of time to earn in game points is a good way of approaching this. In fighting games it's always important to have players have all the characters available so they can learn how they play and how to combat them when they face opponents who play those characters, giving players this new option on how to obtain those characters makes it feel like they are less forced to HAVE to get the characters by paying for them.


Overall my thoughts on the update are that while the game is still severely lacking in features that should have been there at launch, at least the developers are listening to players and adding in these additional features free of charge because of the fact they should have been included when bought at launch. The new character Alex is a lot of fun and a big step up from his previous incarnation. The new online rematch function helps keep a flow of adrenaline when fighting the same opponent after a previous match and lastly the Fight Money option earned in game for unlocking additional content and something I hope more game's implement for their bonus content.

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